America’s oil boom is now so big it is visible from space. In night-time satellite images North Dakota’s Bakken shale, the oilfield that has transformed US production in the past five years, shines almost as brightly as Chicago. The lights are flare stacks: towers burning off natural gas from oil wells 24 hours a day.
They highlight a less than sparkling side of the US shale boom: how development has outpaced investment in infrastructure to manage the unwanted associated gas that is released alongside oil production.